Boy, don’t you hate it when that happens?
The first commercial microwave ovens were introduced in 1946 by Raytheon. They weighed in at 670 pounds, stood 62 inches tall, required a plumbed-in line for water-cooling the magnetron, and cost $2,000 (approx. $20,000 today). They could cook a six-pound roast in two minutes and singe the hair off a man’s testicles from 50 feet away (okay, I made that one up). A few years later, Raytheon tried again, and also licensed the technology to appliance-maker Tappan, which introduced a more compact and air-cooled model. Between them, a few thousand units were sold in the 1950s and 1960s, but they still did not become popular. Finally, after Raytheon bought the Amana refrigerator company and acquired a cheaper magnetron techonolgy from Japan, the Amana Radarange was born and the microwave oven became commonplace in American homes.
The mother of my high school friend Andy had one of those very early Radaranges. It was mounted into the wall of her pantry, like a traditional wall oven, had a dial for a timer instead of digital input, and only had one power setting: freaking nuclear. She refused to buy a newer one because the original Radarange was so much more powerful than later microwave ovens. My mother got her first microwave oven for Christmas in 1979, and, while it had nowhere near the gamma-ray-burst power of Andy’s mom’s, it did have a cooking chamber big enough to fit a 30-pound turkey. That was the era when they were trying to sell microwave ovens as replacements for traditional ovens, before everyone discovered that the only thing a microwave oven was really good for was making popcorn and heating up Hot Pockets. Her microwave lasted well over 20 years, finally giving up the ghost just a couple of years ago. When Andy’s mother moved out of her house after her husband died, I think she left hers in place for the next family to live there.
All of this is simply an exceedingly long introduction to this 2005 American Heritage article about the history of the development of the microwave oven (via MeFi). Enjoy.
We had a Tappan microwave, although I don’t recall that it was called a microwave then…any how, it was huge, bigger than our wall oven and my dad was in love with it. I’ve wondered for years if all of us will come down with some mysterious bone melting disease as a result of our early exposure to the that radiation. I’ll let you know.
It might explain that brain pimple of yours.
YIKES you might be right! I remembered that we called it an electronic oven and it was full of microwaving action. My mom was particularly impressed that she could bake a potato in just a few minutes with it.
Allot of faux dining establishments use industrial microwaves now. Most often for things such as ‘saute’ed mushrooms, smoked/roasted chicken, grilled this or that.’ Sad shiester crack head shit really. A long way from home convenience for ease of living.
One of my nephews was unfortunate enough to have parents so lazy that all he ate really, was t.v. dinner crap.
Sad. He fed most of it to the family dog.
off-topic remarks redacted — BK